Showcase: Sons of Horus MkIII Despoiler Squad

Today I’m presenting my Sons of Horus Despoiler Squad. MkIII “Iron Armour” Legionaries meet various upgrade sets and kitbashes for maximum Cthonian flavour. Freshly painted, but unfortunately not quite compatible with the current edition. How that happened, you’ll find out in this post, plus plenty of pictures.

This Sons of Horus Despoiler Squad has been sitting finished on my shelf for some months now, but I haven’t posted them yet. I painted them in preparation for the new edition of The Horus Heresy, shortly after the Saturnine box was announced (my review of the box and new edition here). My Sons of Horus collection so far comprises heavy hitters like the Kratos, Land Raider Proteus, and more recently Horus Ascended. So it was high time for some infantry.

Why I chose MkIII armour for my Despoiler Squad

I love the redesigned MkIII armour and really wanted to paint some models. MkIII “Iron” armour is designed for frontal assault, so I decided that a Despoiler Squad would best suit the Sons of Horus’ preferred method of warfare. Towards the end of the last edition, rules for Inductii appeared, and I liked the suggested colour scheme with black arms and helmets. I thought this would fit well with the black-armoured units of Abaddon’s 1st Company that I want to add to my collection (see the Saturnine Dreadnought I painted last year).

When new edition rules invalidate your loadout

But the inevitable happened: in the new edition, my freshly completed squad was no longer legal. In the army list in the old Liber books, you could give every model in Despoiler Squads heavy chainswords. In the current army list, only 1 per 5 models may receive a special melee weapon, and since I already have two power weapons, there’s no room left for the heavy chainswords.

That’s why I thought for a long time about what to do, and whether I should modify the models again before posting the squad here. However, I’ve decided to leave the Despoilers as they are for now and count the models with heavy chainswords as regular chainswords for the time being. Medium-term, I’ll probably replace the tactical arrows on the shoulder pads with generic symbols, and paint a few extra models with regular weaponry. That way I’m more flexible to play the models as Despoilers, or also as a Legion Command Squad.

Kitbashing for extra Sons of Horus character

For extra Sons of Horus flair, I dug deep into the bits box. In the old edition, artificer armour for Sergeants was a big thing, so I created a kitbash based on Vheren Ashurhaddon’s body, plus shoulder pads from the Legion Command Squad and a Sons of Horus resin helmet.

Artificer armour is (thankfully) no longer a thing in the new edition, but the Sergeant still looks cool and could optionally also be played as an Optae or even Centurion. Painting-wise, I followed my Sons of Horus tutorial (which you can find here), using zenithal airbrushing, panel liner, and loads of weathering techniques for a fast yet effective paint scheme.

For the remaining models, I combined the MkIII Legionaries with weapon arms from the Melee Weapon Upgrade Set, plus the Sons of Horus helmets.

Added to this are some Carsoran power axes for more flavour, even though they don’t make much sense compared to the generic versions in game terms. The back module with banner that I had left over from Ashurhaddon, I used as a vexilla. The holster with the chained skulls on the model with the heavy chainsword comes also from Ashurhaddon.

Final thoughts on my Horus Heresy Despoiler Squad

So that’s my Despoiler Squad, which I look at with mixed feelings. As I’ve already mentioned, I’ll certainly rework them a bit. But at the end of the day: rules come and go, cool models endure, and I hope you like my Sons of Horus 🙂

Feel free to leave a reaction, or drop a comment below, I’m also happy to answer any questions on our friendly hobby Discord server. Thanks a lot, and happy hobbying!